Viking Chess

By Tomas Forsman

Introduction

Viking Chess was designed to enter the Chess Variant Pages' 84 Spaces Contest. Viking
Chess is set up to be more aggressive then ordinary Chess, which was a
challange to do on a bigger board. The placement of the pieces have
been designed to allow strategy as well as fast action. Even though
games can last a long time, they are filled with action from move one.

Board and Setup

Viking Chess is played on a board with 12 files and 7 ranks. The
pieces are set up with both sides starting on the same side of board.

Comments

This variant is berserkly sharp, as befitting of the name, and a stronger player could easily suffer an upset loss if he is at all having an off day. The rectangular, rather than square, board cannot be helped, but it is clearly justified.

My tentative estimates for the piece values of this variant would be: P=1; B=3; N=3.5; R=5.5; Q=9.5 and the fighting value of K=3 approximately (though naturally it cannot be traded).

It isn't easy to come up with an interesting variant when you limit yourself to the usual pieces, and Viking Chess passes that test with flying colors. I was surprised it didn't make it to the final in the 84-square Contest, although it was certainly in the strongest bracket. Would you mind if I made a preset for it on the Game Courier?

Thanx for that comment. I tried to place the Rooks somewhere else but when
I pull them back it gets a lot easier to make a run with the pawns and
then white has a great advantage for opening and in my games get the first
queen about <b>65%</b> of the times and that makes a great
difference. With the Rooks up front white gets the first Queen just above
<b>50%</b> of the times and more often then not has to
sacrifice something to get it.<br><br>
Now I'm not the best chessplayer in the world so perhaps there are
strategies that would make these numbers a lot different but I haven't
found them atleast =)<br><br>
I didn't take your question as critisism by the way, just became curious
if I had missed some advantage with having the Rooks more back.<br><br>
With regards<br><br>
Tomas Forsman

Partly keeping close to standard Chess, partly the trivial reason of
symmetry within as well as between armies. In retrospect the latter is
fairly trivial as the initial f1xg2 and g1xf2 could not be replicated
except by wraparound. My question was out of curiosiy rather than
criticism, and if moving further from standard Chess improves the game,
well done.
By the way, the game really fits its name. It conveys well the idea of
warriors heading off into frozen northern wastes, as much competing to
best fight the common enemy of the elements as fighting each other. Many
games fit their names less well.